Aubrey de Grey - Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime

The biomedical revolution described in this book is still some way offat least a few decades, maybe more. Why, you may then ask, should you concern yourself with it now?

The answer is simple: Once you know what I have to tell you, youll want to make it happen sooner, and some of you will put that desire into action. The more people are aware of what has now become foreseeable in the fight against our oldest foe, aging, the faster it will become acceptable to come out as an ardent opponent of aging, and then unacceptable not to. We arent close enough to this revolution to put accurate timescales on its arrival, but we are close enough that our action (or inaction) today will affect the date at which aging is defeated.

In fact, weve been at that point for a few years now. It could, therefore, be argued that I should have written this book sooner. Well, maybe I should havebut theres a trade-off: with every year that has passed since I developed the key concepts described here, progress has been seen in the laboratory. Every step of this progress has strengthened the case that the overall scheme will succeed, so the book as a whole is more compelling than it could have been a year or three ago. In fact, without the diligent efforts of a large number of scientists within and beyond biogerontology, my plan for defeating aging could not exist.

Another reason this book has only been written now is the usual one: books dont write themselves, and Ive been spending every waking hour engaged in other work to further the anti-aging mission. Without doubt, you would not have this book in your hands today if it were not for the diligent work of my research assistant Michael Rae, who dedicated much of 2006 to it: he can take credit for most of the text of Part 2.

Michael is not the only person without whom this book could not have come to pass. Thanks to Peter Ulrich for painstakingly going over the fascinating history of patient work, inspired reasoning, and scientific serendipity behind the development of alagebrium. Any misunderstandings of this story are Michaels. Special thanks go to our graphics team, who prepared the illustrations: Bram Thijssen, Bryan English, Benjamin Martin, Tyler Chesley, Zachary Bos, Hoyt Smith, and their coordinator, Jeff Hall. Additionally, Michael and I received outstanding editorial help from Methuselah Foundation volunteers Reason, Anne Corwin, and David Fisher. Our agent, John Brockman, and his staff were tremendously efficient in shepherding the book through the worldwide publication process, and our editor at St. Martins, Phil Revzin, also provided invaluable editorial input. And finally, my work on this book has, as with all my contributions to the crusade against aging, depended hugely on the unswerving intellectual and emotional support of my beloved wife, Adelaide Carpenter.

I hope that this book will enjoy a wide readership; if it does, most readers will be nonbiologists and certainly nonbiogerontologists. Some, however, will be people who do possess expertise in these areas. To that group I would like to make clear at the outset that, in presenting SENS, the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, to a general audience, I have not been able to delve into every nook and cranny of the relevant science, and you will surely identify aspects of SENS that, if what you read here were all there was to it, would seem flawed. I merely remind you now that this book is not all there is to SENS, and that, if you see what seems to you to be a slam-dunk objection to what I say, you should consult my published academic work (and, preferably, consult me personally, too) before dismissing it.

However, the above applies only to errors of omission, of course. Any errors of commission are, I fully accept, my responsibility and mine alone.